by Sabrina Sampson

Created on: November 05, 2009

Before your first post appears on your blog, before the first section of your website is written, you must give serious thought to the design and development of the site. Practically speaking, the appearance of your website is the first and constant part of your website that a visitor views.

Use a catchy headline

The best way to attract your audience is to use a catchy header with bold and/or italic font. This allows for the content to be emphasized in a professional way. Make sure that you are communicating with the reader in a way that compliments your context and appeals to your audience. A good way to do this is to use tools such as images, pod casts, video and audio.

Keep the appearance streamlined and simple

The basic rule to designing a website or blog for high traffic is to keep the appearance simple and streamlined. Too much information, whether that means too much text or too many graphics or just too much overall clutter, can overwhelm a reader and give the site an amateur and clunky feel. On the other hand, a simple, elegant, and easy to navigate website creates an aura of professionalism.

Implement hot spots in key areas

Plug in hot spots in a Z pattern in places where oyur eyes are naturally drawn to. When we are reading a page our eyes usually move in a Z pattern to skim the page. A web designer should keep this in mind when determining the layout and positioning of content as well as the navigability of the site. How easily can the visitor move through the site? Is all important and relevant information readily available and all extraneous information cut? These are questions that will greatly heighten the experience of any reader on a site.

Use engaging and informative content with pleasing colors and backgrounds

Besides the design of the homepage, there are a few other readily apparent parts of website design the creator should keep in mind. For one, each page or section of the site should work to accomplish the rule of simplicity and sophistication. A good trick is to search other popular sites in the industry and analyze what color schemes and designs they are using. This will ensure that all of the content and the design is both pleasing and informative while remembering that internet readers do not spend book- or even magazine-lengths of time on a site: content should just as importantly be as succinct as possible.

Use or learn to use HTML

There are many ways to acquire a professional design, but to write the design you'll

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